LAST SUNDAY AFTER EPIPHANY 2026
FEBRUARY 15, 2026
FR. JERRY THOMPSON
ST. JAMES’ CHURCH, FREMONT, NE
This morning is the final Sunday after the feast of the Epiphany, and the gospel reading on this Sunday is always the Transfiguration.
I want to begin this morning’s sermon by quoting at length a meditation by Bishop Craig Loya about the Transfiguration. Some of you know or know of Bishop Loya. He was Dean of Trinity Cathedral here in Omaha, and he is currently serving as the Bishop of Minnesota.
Bishop Loya says the following:
“Mount Tabor, the site of the Transfiguration in this week’s gospel lesson, “rises sharply and dramatically from the plains of the Jezreel Valley “in southern Galilee. “Because [Mt. Tabor] stands alone, “it offers an incredible perspective from its peak, “and you can see for many, many miles in all directions, “noting the ways in which all major landmarks and geographic features “are interconnected. “The Transfiguration itself is also about perspective. “Jesus has been teaching his disciples some hard truths. “Being the Messiah will require that he give up his life, “and discipleship will ask the same “of all who follow his way.
“When the whole scene is overtaken by a mystical ‘bright cloud’ – “Jesus is flooded by light and joined by predecessors of God’s promise – “it is illuminating the present struggles [of Jesus and the disciples] “from the perspective of eternity, “offering a preview of the end of the story, “when the power of God’s love proves unstoppable “by even the worst our world can be or do. “The moment is meant to strengthen the disciples “before they enter into the hardest days.
“In hard times, “it is easy to be consumed by the very real urgency “of the work in front of us. “Without perspective, “we can think that we are to beat back the darkness “through our own efforts.
“But faithful action requires regular trips up the mountain “to reset our perspective in the light of God’s power. “Sitting with God in prayer will never feel urgent. “There’s always plenty of good and holy things “tugging at our attention down on the plains.
“But if we don’t allow our faces to be enfolded by Jesus’ light, “if we don’t allow ourselves to be overtaken “by the bright cloud, “we will be unable to fully reflect that light
“through our work in the world. “We can’t give what we don’t have.
“Jesus liberates the world “by setting its cruelty and brokenness “in the long perspective of God’s power. “Our call is to constantly place our struggles “in that perspective, “and invite others to live in it, too, “until the present darkness positively dazzles with God’s pure light.”
There are many things worth taking note of in Bishop Loya’s words, especially in the context of what he has dealing with as the Bishop of Minnesota.Along with most if not all of his fellow Episcopal bishops, Loya has been an outspoken critic of the behavior of federal agents in Minnesota and of our current federal administration’s lawless and shameful activity in so many places in this country while at the same time claiming to be followers of Jesus.
Bishop Loya has also been, as he is here in this meditation, faithful about pointing us always in the direction from which our hope arises as disciples of Jesus Christ.
Our hope in the face of evil comes from our God. Just as it will for Jesus as he walks to the cross; just as it will for the apostles as they face death because of their faith in the way of Jesus; and just as it has for all those who have faced evil and sometimes death
with faith in the way of Jesus since that day of the Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor.
As Bishop Loya points out in his meditation, Jesus has been teaching his followers – then and now – some hard truths about his way. The way of Jesus comes with high costs, the cost of the cross, for us all. His way is for those who truly want to look to God
as the source of their light and wholeness and salvation in this world and beyond this world, a world that continues to be filled with darkness against which we Christians must give witness by pointing to the way of God.
The way of Jesus is not for those who want it easy in this world because his way makes demands on us. The way of Jesus demands that we give up having ourselves as the center of our attention, and that we make serving him the center of our attention.
That’s where the light is going to be found. That’s where we find hope to keep going when the going gets rough, when the darkness is at its deepest.
In the way of Jesus is where we find the strength to keep walking faithfully and not capitulate to the darkness that wants our souls, the darkness that does everything it can to overtake us and to overtake the hope that comes from God and that shapes our lives and our choices.
As Bishop Loya points out, we cannot give what we don’t have; and we get what we need by going to the mountain in prayer, by dwelling in the light of Christ.
Make no mistake, the Christian life, discipleship to Jesus, is deeply and profoundly about giving out of that well of love and faith that we build through our relationship with that light. For as the words in the prayer attributed to St. Francis say, “it is in giving that we receive . . . “and it is in dying that we receive eternal life.” It is in giving that we receive, and it is in our giving that God’s world receives as well.
Ash Wednesday is this week. As we move toward the season of Lent, we might ask ourselves how the Holy Spirit is calling us to live more faithfully into that first and most critical relationship of our lives, with Jesus Christ, so that we have ever more within ourselves to give to the world; as we participate in the healing of our souls, and the healing of our nation, and the healing of the entire creation for which Christ died and rose again - until one day we return to the source of all, the light that dazzles – even in the present darkness.
Amen.
ASH WED 2026
FEB 18, 2026
FR. JERRY THOMPSON
ST. JAMES’ CHURCH, FREMONT, NE
Paul writes to the Corinthians, “We entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”
One of the gifts of the Lenten season is that we are reminded that, although the main work of reconciliation belongs to God in Christ himself, reconciliation is not all up to the God in whom we live in covenant. A covenant has two parties, and we are the other party.
Just as with everything else, we choose to participate in the reconciliation God offers us –
or we do not. For most of us, it’s a matter of both. We might strive to be part of a world reconciled to God most of the time. But we know in our souls that our striving is imperfect,
that there are parts of our lives that we need to repent, to turn away from, to change in order to conform more perfectly to God’s will for all of life, including our own.
If we’re not aware that those places exist, we simply aren’t watching our lives very closely,
not as closely as we are called to watch them as followers of Jesus.
Each year the season of Lent calls us into that repentance, into that turning toward God,
into that work of change.
That change might very well be in part about personal ways of living from which God is calling us to turn. Holding on to that grudge against our neighbor. Nurturing that anger in our heart rather than looking to Jesus to help heal us of it and to let it go.
I’m reminded of Jesus at one point saying, “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or “sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; “first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.”
Jesus reminds us that we cannot come before God with an unrepentant heart and expect to be unreservedly welcomed.
Maybe that’s shocking to some of us, because we have popularized Jesus into someone who accepts us without expectations. We are forgiven, so we can do whatever we darn well please without any effort to be faithful - and Jesus doesn’t really care.
But that’s not the Jesus of the gospels, who does expect our faithfulness, just as his Father does. He expects our striving. He expects our love and our service. He expects us to live our lives as fellow children of God.
He has shown us the way.
He calls us to pick up our cross and follow him; he expects us to follow the way he has shown us.
When we don’t, Jesus is disappointed and he is sad and sometimes he’s a little miffed.
And he calls us back to faithfulness, as he has throughout history with his people.
Our first reading this Ash Wednesday reminds us that faithfulness is not an individual endeavor alone. Isaiah calls the nation to faithfulness. Ancient Israel claims to follow this particular god, and Isaiah reminds the people that doing so comes with expectations about how they treat their fellow human beings as well as their fellow citizens.
And because they are dropping the ball big time, he calls them to repentance. He calls them to change their ways. He calls them to be faithful both to the god they claim and to the fellow human beings in their midst.
Through the prophet, the Lord asks, “Is not this the fast that I choose, to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them and not to hide yourself from your own kin?
“Then,” says Isaiah, “then your light shall. break forth like the dawn, “and your healing shall spring up quickly. “Then your vindicator shall go before you, “and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard. “Then you shall call, “and the Lord will answer; “you shall cry for help,
“and he will say, ‘Here I am.
If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday. “The Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your needs in parched places and make your bones strong, and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail.”
Isaiah reminds us as people of God that we have a responsibility as a nation, too. That’s especially true given that our leadership claims to be followers of Jesus.
But when we look at scriptural calls to faithfulness such as this one or Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25, known as the separation of the sheep and the goats, we see clearly that we have much repentance to enter into as a nation, that we are called to change our ways if we want to live with the blessing of the God we say we follow.
Instead of striving to be faithful to God’s vision for creation, we are, as a nation, actually striving to hurt our fellow human beings and the natural world.
Although some of us in this room would never adopt these policies, our elected officials are doing so and they are using our tax dollars to enact ways unfaithful to God.
The Lord is calling us into deep repentance this Lent. Deep change. Deep turning toward the ways of faith in God.
The thing about Jesus, the thing about this Lord we claim to follow, is that he is the Lord we confess in today’s psalm: “The lord is full of compassion and mercy, “slow to anger and of great kindness. “He will not always accuse us, “nor will he keep his anger for ever.
“He has not dealt with us according to our sins “nor rewarded us according to our wickedness. “for as the heavens are high above the earth “so is his mercy great upon those who fear him. . .
“As a father cares for his children,’ so does the Lord care for those who fear him. “For he himself knows whereof we are made; “he remembers that we are but dust.”
Jesus always accepts our repentance with his love. He insists upon our repentance, yes.
And he receives it with his loving heart; he receives us with that loving heart.
Jesus is pleased with our repentance, with our love for him,’ with our desire to live in a way that glorifies him, and when we humbly return, when we turn back to him with the authentic intention to love and serve him completely, he receives us as the father receives the prodigal son in Jesus’ parable.
He receives us with outstretched arms waiting to enfold us. He receives us with a heart full of love and gratitude – the same love and gratitude with which we approach this altar.,
magnified many times over
I’ll close with a prayer I came across this week in my own private prayers; it’s from a Franciscan Daily Office prayer book, and it’s designed to be prayed following the praying of Psalm 64. It’s especially appropriate for Ash Wednesday:
“Cut through the malice of our hearts “with the sword of your word; “unmask the conspiracy of our evil “with the light of your goodness; “wound the pride of our rebellion “with the grace that makes righteous; “and bring near the day “when love shall reign in joy.”
Amen.